


Animaux Fantastiques

by scribeofmorpheus



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: 1920s, Alchemical Experiments, Aurors, Beauxbatons, Beauxbatons student OC, Canon Divergent, Dragonology, Dragons, During Grindelwald's War, F/M, Grimoires and Tomes, Magic and all the frightful things that lurk, Other, POC Witch, Poorly translated French, Post World War I, Potioneer OC, Set During Global Wizarding War, Slow Burn, Time Loop, Time Travel, Wizards, dark wizards
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-12
Updated: 2020-12-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:21:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26206345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scribeofmorpheus/pseuds/scribeofmorpheus
Summary: Grindelwald's war grows more desperate each day; losses on both sides leaves the wizarding world spent and on edge.Dark Wizards try to occupy new territories to increase their foothold. One such Dark Wizard, Geoffrey Brudwarx is sent on a secret mission by Grindelwald to acquire an old and powerful tome -a Grimoire- with the potential to create frightful things.With Newt and Tina seeing to top-secret matters at the behest of Dumbledore, and the eerie silence on the intelligence front about Grindelwald's next plan of action, Theseus is left to secure the battlefront inching off the coasts of Scotland and Scandanavia.With the aid of aspiring dragonologist and avant-garde potioneer, Vianne, Theseus manages to reaffirm his stance in all the chaos. All the while flirting with the preposterous idea of opening himself up to the possibilities of love. Again.(No idea where this is going, only that it was a 3am plot bunny and I haven't read a Potter book since I was a tween so...hhheee good luck when reading all my inconsistent lore! Also, this series should be taken with a grain of salt and complete distance from J.K and her views; they are not reflected here. I just find the Scamander brothers cute.)
Relationships: Harvey Ridgebit & Original Female Character(s), Harvey Ridgebit & Theseus Scamander, Newt Scamander & Theseus Scamander & Original Female Character(s), Theseus Scamander/Original Character(s), Theseus Scamander/Original Female Character(s), Theseus Scamander/Vianne Montserrat
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12





	1. Sous Les Catacombes

**Author's Note:**

> Bonjour!  
> I just want to give everyone a heads up: I spent the better part of my youth learning French as a second language and I can confidently say I am terrible at French! Allez! Allez! thank the goddess Media for google translate. I'm sorry for the terrible grammar in advance.♥  
> Au revoir.  
>  _Vianne is pronounced like Vivianne without the first Vi and a soft -anne. [Vee-ahn]_

**THESEUS**

**Paris**

A green streak of hissing magic tunnelled out from the catacombs and into the street above. Theseus cast a warding spell. His fellow Auror was not as quick. Not as fortunate. The green streak struck her chest and she fell, convulsing in pain.

Elsewhere on the street, several flicks of the wrist and swift chants of curses and counter curses lit up the night in frightful blasts. A wall broke down, only to instantly be rebuilt as if nothing had happened.

Theseus picked himself off the ground and sprinted into the catacombs below. A few other Aurors followed after, their footsteps heightened by the stone structures. Theseus felt small, as if in a giant’s house waiting for the boot to stomp. It didn’t, so he kept going.

In a flurry, there were more flashes, this time discombobulating. A blast went off near his ear and there was a ringing sound, wasp-like. Then a second blast, this time his body felt the brunt of it, he was forced off his feet into the air and back against a wall. His head felt hot, his vision spiralling and then blackness as his cheek met cold ground.

Theseus saw _her_ , as clear as day, surrounded by a sea of blue flame.

“I love you,” she said softly.

Theseus felt a chink in his armour, his eyes seeing nothing but her pained smile. Her dark and enchanting eyes glassy with unshed tears. The quiver of her lips telling him she had more to say but not the time to say it. Lips that he had kissed a few hours earlier. Those hours aged in his mind and he hated the fact that he could barely remember what that kiss had felt like. What he had been thinking then.

When she turned blue with the flames, enveloped in fire he couldn’t smell but could feel—not in heat but in magic—the chink grew to a webbed crack.

Leta was gone within the span of a half-second between blinking eyelids. In that desperate, swift moment, his heart shattered.

Armoured no longer, Theseus was raw.

Raw and aching with fury.

“Theseus,” a familiar voice called out to him. Then, a cold hand shook him. “Theseus, wake up.”

A half-choked scream woke him. The pain residing in the octaves was strikingly intimate. Agotha was kneeling beside him, her wand cracked at the hilt. A pathetic orb of light illuminating the catacombs that were in disrepair. From the look on the Auror’s face, Theseus knew it had been his own screams that woke him.

“Are you alright?” Agotha asked, her Eastern European accent was heavy. Theseus was used to it, it brought him some comfort. Not enough to keep him from gasping at the sight of the mangled flesh near her right eye. That hadn't been there moments ago. Before they descended the catacombs.

He nodded, the ringing in one ear making him wince. The bruise on his rib turned the wince into a growl.

“Good, because there’s something you need to see.” Agotha helped Theseus onto his feet.

Out from under the rubble, there was a hole in the roof of the catacombs.

“Not up,” Agotha added. “Below.”

Theseus sighed, “There’s more?” It wasn’t a question, more of an exhausted sentiment masquerading as one.

“Much,” Agotha said simply. Her English vocabulary was still growing. She wasn’t one for long sentences. What could be said in few words she could cut down into fewer. Theseus liked that about her. Agotha didn’t beat around the bush.

“By Merlin’s graces,” Theseus’s eyes opened wider. The darkness below was richer, almost palpable. As his eyes adjusted, they were drawn to white specks glistening like wet diamonds. Not clear, but white, resembling brushed enamel. There was a pattern to the shine, geometric in shape. Scales. They were scales. Magnificent and hard from the look of them. They formed a single body in the darkness, growing more and more physical as light was let in. Shining purple fires with cat-like slits for pupils would appear and disappear between each heartbeat. Nostrils letting out hot air that made the catacombs warmer than they should have been. Claws clipped. Stains of red on the dulled scales of the softer underbelly. An enchanted muzzle made of a green silk scarf flapping in the air, keeping teeth locked away. “That’s a dragon.”

“That’s no dragon I’ve ever seen,” Agotha noted. “None of us have.”

Suddenly Theseus became aware of the footsteps clamouring above and to the side. Auror’s who survived the attack.

“That’s not the only…oddity we found,” Agotha led the way again, this time taking Theseus away from the dragon with the burning eyes and into a makeshift laboratory. Smells of sulphur and burnt hair and potions brewing made the air stuffy. Pungent.

Agotha covered her nose with her elbow, Theseus reached for his handkerchief and handed it to her. She thanked him.

“Dragon claws, boomslang skin, bloodroot, bone shavings, unicorn hair…” Theseus read more of the labels on the workstation. Some of the flasks were still hot. Some of the concoctions brewing inside were iridescent, swirling with the consistency of mercury. One flask was filled with a substance as red as blood. “What were they trying to make?”

Agotha clicked her tongue in distaste, “No one knows. There’s more contraband here than I’ve ever seen. And there’s these.” Agotha flicked her wand, the magic casting off sloppily from the crack.

A six-vial tray hovered close to Theseus. Only five vials were present. The sixth was missing. The liquid inside the vials seemed alive, congealing to the glass, like spindle fibres growing towards the cork in defiance before slipping back into the main liquid mass as if out of exhaustion. The concoction wanted out.

The hairs on Theseus’s arms stood up.

“The sixth vial?” Theseus asked, his eyes sweeping the room for any inky spills or broken glass.

“Maddox saw Geoffrey take one right after he…” Agotha was looking down at a silhouette framed by dust on the ground. An Auror had died there. That was all that was left. Agotha held her eyes shut for a moment. Theseus let her have it.

“We take the vials with us, and any more research we find as evidence,” Theseus said.

“And the dragon?” Agotha asked, a croak in her voice that wasn’t there before. “We can’t leave it and we can’t set it loose.”

Theseus sighed, the bruise had turned to a pulsating heat. Unpleasant and pestering. “We’ll have to find someone who speaks dragon.”

**Ministère des Affaires Magiques de la France**

“Do we know what Geoffrey and his associates are after?” The commanding voice of Adrienne Severine Montserrat filled the spacious room.

With only Theseus, Agotha and Maddox present, there weren’t many willing to speak up to the newly elected Ministre de La Magie. Especially not in the privacy of her office which was designed to make guests feel small in the shadow of her accomplishments, immortalised on plaques and golden chalices. It wasn’t her strategic layout or powerful voice that made others hold their heads low to avoid eye contact with Ardrianne, it was her intense aura.

Heart-shaped face that was all sharp angles. Dark skin that shined and even darker eyes. Ears weighed down by statement piece earrings proudly showing her African heritage. A thick patois she used as a weapon to make people pay heed to every syllable she spoke. Clothing made of loud fabric, partial to golden thread. Her height added onto by her pointed heels so she nearly towered over everyone else. The only thing soft about Adrianne was the delicate manner in which she clasped her hands.

The silence had dragged on longer than Adrianne liked. She put out her cigarette and asked again, this time turning to look at the three Aurors in her office: “Well, did you come here to share your findings or waste what little valuable time I have?”

Theseus heard her, but he was distracted with the old magazine lying forgotten on a coffee table. It was the issue of his engagement. The moving picture of Leta smiling and the flash going off as Newt shifted his head no longer had the effect it used to. Now it was bitter. Like the bile rising with Theseus’s temper.

Agotha recognised the look on Theseus’s face and answered for the group, “We do not know what Geoffrey is—”

“ _Ta gueule,”_ Adrianne held up her hand to silence the room and sighed. “Two months tracking one of Grindelwald’s followers and we have nothing to show for it.”

“With all due respect,” Theseus spoke without realising. His tone was far from civil. “You aren’t out there with the rest of us. Results? We brought an entire laboratory with us.”

“You bought me a potions experiment. One that no one knows the purpose for.” Adrianne said.

“I am certain that whatever Grindelwald sent Geoffrey to do, those vials and that dragon are the key to understanding it,” Theseus could feel his voice rising, but he didn’t stop it. He didn’t want to stop it. “Maybe the key to turning the tide to our advantage.”

Agotha and Maddox glanced at one another, feeling tensions grow.

“And how do you suppose we find a key if we do not even have the slightest clue as to what we are trying to unlock?” Adrianne took a step closer, the scent of cloves and tobacco becoming stronger.

“Perhaps if you and the rest of the Ministry weren’t keeping to your ivory towers—”

Adrianne took another step forward, her words running fast, “My ivory tower is the only thing keeping order in this chaos. A war may be brewing, but it is _my_ job to keep it to the shadows for as long as I can. _J'ai juré_ to protect both the innocents of the magic world and the _non-magique_. Panic is the first step to allowing chaos through the door. And make no mistake, I am one of the few forces standing in the in-between.”

Theseus rolled his tongue behind a shut jaw to keep from saying more. Adrianne took that to mean he was stepping down. She lifted her head, the signs of sleeplessness more apparent at that angle.

“And I thought _you_ were supposed to be the level headed brother,” she said. “That temper of yours will sway no one to your side if you let it run rampant so.”

“We meant no disrespect,” Maddox jumped in to quell the fiery energy.

“Oh, he meant every disrespect,” Adrianne waved a finger and a quill began etching something on a piece of parchment. With a second wave, the parchment flew towards Theseus. “The potioneers I have on staff may not be best equipped to figure out what is in those vials, but I am certain you will find someone there.”

“And the dragon?” Theseus asked, folding the paper into his breast pocket.

“Everything you need, you will find there,” Adrianne said. “Leave us.”

Maddox and Agotha both clenched their jaws and did as she instructed. Agotha squeezed Theseus’s shoulder on the way out, the white streak in her hair empathetically turning blue. Her aptitude for reading a person's emotions was impressive. 

“I know this wasn’t the assignment you wanted Theseus. After losing someone close to you, I imagine your wishes were to remain by your brother’s side. But alas, you are here and Newt Scamander is elsewhere. He is doing his part in all this. It’s time you gathered your wits and did yours,” Adrianne decided against using magic, she wanted this talk to feel personal, grounded. So she reached for a postcard under a paperweight and made Theseus wait until she walked back to where he stood to hand him the thick card. “An owl bearing Dumbledore’s seal sent this last night. I hope this brings you some peace of mind.”

Theseus looked over the handwriting, reading the words three times over. The message was barely a message. Just enough letters strung together to form a note with a signature at the end. It read:

I AM ALRIGHT. N.

 _Newt,_ Theseus’s throat went dry. _You’re alive._

He thanked Adrianne before making for the address she had given him.


	2. Le Château Flottant

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I tend to spend way too long setting up backstory for my fics. ☺  
> Lol. Sorry.

**VIANNE  
**

**Castle Balcloicheil, in the Scottish Highlands**

_Zap!_

A flash of light went off behind the enchanted force-field that sliced through the heavy nimbus and fluffy cumulus clouds. No thunder followed. Magic then.

An owl screeched, missives tied with a red string clutched in its claws. It dropped the letters and with another zap, it disappeared.

One of the grounds-keepers hurried over to collect the letters.

While the unmistakable bristle of magic rippled out over the open sea towards the concealed fortress, Vianne kept busy by tending to a Norwegian Ridgeback.

The agitated creature kept bucking its hind legs in frustration. The suspicious wound it had when it was first rescued had not yet healed. Numerous magical creatures had been spotted with strange wounds with no explanation as to how or why since the war started. If someone wasn’t looking for something, they’d miss it entirely.

The dragon’s claws dug up wet soil and splattered it onto some of the young attendants Vianne had the luxury of instructing today. She had to do something to quiet the creature’s senses before it hurt itself; or worse, destroyed the grounds.

The other prospective magizoologists scrambled to tie the restraints bolted onto the wooden fencing that constituted for a dragon pen onto the Ridgeback.

Unskilled, wet behind the ears and fingers itching to have their wands at the ready at the drop of a hat, the attendings were lacking in many skillsets, but there was little Vianne could do to remedy that except instruct. Sternly.

Now, without the safety of concealment and at the mercy of volatile magic, these young nervous kids were what counted for magizoologists. Many of those working under Vianne’s tutelage hadn’t had the chance to take their N.E.W.T’s. Which also meant they were too young to fight. Even though many of them wanted to.

Grindelwald's war had taken more than the lives of Auror’s on the frontlines, it had taken the once-promising prospect of a solid, tangible future from so many impressionable minds.

At Castle Balcloicheil, those not suited to war could aid in other ways. A few classes were held to train field potioneers; it was all about being quick on their feet, able to brew and deflect and be invisible while certain death loomed behind every spell. The abilities to know which ingredients were needed to brew a potion to counter-curse, or at the very least, numb any side-effects, were heavily sought after by the Ministry.

The dragon let out a shrill roar, fangs dripping with thick venom. It turned to one of the attendings that had managed to lasso its leg and chomped at the air after another warning cry.

“ _Merde! Éloigne-toi, Harvey!”_ Vianne dragged the scared boy, only a few days into his nineteenth year, by the neck of his collar. He choked some as the dragon recoiled and Vianne let go. Sheepishly, he nodded in thanks as he took a moment to catch his breath.

Harvey Ridgebit may not have been the sharpest wand in the woodshop, but he was eager to learn and above all, he was compassionate. Two traits that rarely went hand in hand when dealing with monstrous beasts.

Not that dragons were inherently violent, but they were beasts all the same. And beasts tended to be dangerous creatures. Especially in captivity.

 _“Faites attention, s'il vous plait!”_ Vianne shouted to the rest of her students. They shook the fear from their eyes and steeled their stances. “Be patient with him.” Her accent was thick now that she spoke in English. It couldn’t be helped, as much as she wanted to stick to her mother tongue, those she harboured under her wing came from all across Europe.

Vianne riffled through her satchel’s endless space. An enchantment she had learnt from a dearly missed friend.

“ _Merde_ ,” she swore, this time at herself. Vianne made a mental note to declutter the satchel later. She removed a small vial marked: ESSENCE DE DRACONUS.

“ _Parfait,_ ” her face lit up as she uncorked the stopper and watched the pink smoke diffuse out into the open air.

The scent of dragons was not horrid, but it was strong. Vianne refrained from choking. She was too proud to let the others see her overcome by the smell. Her eyes did tear up as though she were back at Beauxbâtons chopping onions in the kitchens as punishment for setting fire to the alchemy labs. Some of the attendings scrunched their nose. Harvey sneezed, loudly.

The Ridgeback was momentarily distracted by the sound. Vianne saw it as an opening to approach with a hand outstretched.

“Watch me,” she instructed. “Always approach a dragon with your head bowed. Low means no challenge. We don’t want to challenge. Right now, we want to calm. The essence is to make them think you are one of them. Familiar. Not foe. Dragons have keen senses. When they’re aggravated, too many smells or sounds can confuse them. Scare them.”

Vianne kept her voice whisper low as she approached the dragon slowly. Head cast down, hands open and outstretched, waiting for the Ridgeback to catch the scent and offer its snout in submission.

She took a long breath in, held it for even longer and then released it when the boar-bristle thick hairs of the dragon’s snout touched her palm. Through the corner of her eye, Vianne saw Harvey let out an inaudible whistle. He was impressed.

 _As he should be,_ Vianne smirked.

For that brief instant, Harvey was a student again, mind eager to unravel the workings of what he was witnessing. Vianne was now a teacher, thrilled by the knowledge that she was being listened to; that she was exacting change in a small way.

Then reality struck when a second flash burst. This time louder and bigger. Stronger magic. Someone had come through the barrier.

_Zap!_

The dragon reacted, ripping the chains from the posts and flapping its bat-like wings.

“No, no, no, no,” Vianne rolled through the mud to miss the slash of the dragon’s claws. “ _Merde_!”

Vianne contemplated using her wand, casting a spell…she hesitated. A second too long. The dragon reared up, and flames ignited from its salivary glands, a ball of fire ready to descend.

“Aguamenti!” Harvey shouted, wand pointed. A ball of water forming from the very air to make a bulbous shield that kept being refilled as more evaporated. Vianne and her attendings—her students—were safe. Some of the senior staff arrived and managed to cast a _Mesmerium_ spell on the dragon to steal its attention. The lesson was over, officially.

“ _Incroyable!_ ” Vianne swung her arms so the mud would shake loose. She wiped her shock away and replaced it with a giddy smile. “Well done, Harvey.” She turned to the other students with Harvey tucked under her muddy arm. “Non-violence, that should always be the first thought when dealing with dragons. Protection, evasion and countering should _always_ be your first thought. Dismissed.”

The students went their separate ways. Harvey stayed behind.

“Are you okay?” He asked with concern.

“You were quick on your feet,” Vianne busied herself with wiping off the mud. Harvey helped by casting a spell. “I hesitated. This is my last lesson for today: don’t hesitate. You’ll make a great dragonologist yet, Harvey.”

Harvey nodded, a glisten of pride in his eye.

A Centurion broke away from one of the wall statue posts, body of brick and stone.

“Centurion, what is it?” Vianne asked the sentient statue.

It replied with the voices of the many: “A guest has arrived by the name of Scamander. He brings a company of two.”

“Scamander?” Vianne turned on her heel. “Newt?”

“No,” the statue replied before marching backwards to the post it called its own on the castle battlements.

Vianne marched towards the castle.


	3. Troll Dans Le Donjon

“When one of the Centurion’s told me that someone named Scamander was here to see me, Theseus the war hero was not the first brother I had in mind,” Vianne worked on fastening her left suspender belt as she walked into her cluttered office space.

She was surprised that four people could fit inside her office. Two sat on chairs that she distinctly remembered being used as bookstands. A man with the same sandy brown hair as Newt’s stood facing the only window big enough to let light in.

The other man, shorter and brawnier, but only around the shoulders and thighs, sat on one of the free chairs. A full beard and muddied green eyes. He was flipping through the pages of an advanced anatomy book too quickly to be reading.

The woman who sat on the other chair did so with a stiff posture, sharp chin held high. A streak of her raven hair the colour of ash. She had one eye, the other was covered by a patch. A scar around the edges of the patch indicating she gained the patch violently. She looked around the room, slowly. She was actually reading the room.

“You know my brother?” Theseus inquired, one hand holding a cup of hot tea. The other in his pocket.

“Newt? Yes,” Vianne walked around to her desk and sat on the edge that only had unopened letters. Her chair was also being used as a bookshelf. Organising that may have taken an ordinary wizard a stroke of their wand but not for Vianne. “We met at a book signing. He taught me how to do the Undetectable Extension Charm. I gave him my notes on the dragons I studied in China. Leaves quite the impression. Quiet and small, eyes like the _non-magique_ _s_ ferrets.”

Theseus exhaled with a tickle of amusement, “Don’t think I’ve ever heard that one before.”

 _You have them too,_ Vianne thought. _Except yours are the eyes of a cornered Ferret. Sharper. Harder. Wiry._

“Seeing as how yours is a known name, your being here cannot be for a small ask,” Vianne went straight to the point. “What is it I can help you with?”

The woman with the ashen streak reached for something in her coat's inside pocket. Vianne paused. Then, when the woman held up a vial of black ooze that moved with a mind of its own, she inhaled, her interestes piqued.

Vianne grabbed her monocle from the open, hand-sized chest on her desk and moved closer to the vial. “ _Ma Déesse_.”

“I take it you’ve never seen this before either?” the woman possessed the same baroque as Harvey’s Hungarian accent. Vianne didn’t need to pay attention to her tone to know she was disappointed by Vianne’s reaction, the ashen streak turning darker did that loud enough.

Vianne’s attention was pulled to the woman, “ _Un métamorphe…_ ” When she realised she’d said those words out loud, she shook her head apologetically. “I mean, you are a Metamorphmagus, no? I have never had the pleasure of meeting one.”

“And you haven’t,” the woman said. Her streak turned ashen again.

“Professor,” the man with the beard interjected. “If you please—” he gestured to the vial. His accent was heavily Welsh.

“Oh, I am no professor,” Vianne took the vial in her hands and looked it over again. As she observed, she added: “Call me Vianne.”

“Maddox,” the bearded man said.

“Agotha,” the woman said. She was standing now, reading the titles of Vianne’s book collection.

Theseus looked over a book of muggle poetry, his expression blank.

“ _Fluide visqueux. Propriétés adhésives de l'eau…Hmmm, Mémoire de l'eau,_ ” Vianne was absentmindedly speaking her findings out loud.

Theseus turned, “What do you mean by water memory?”

“See how the tendrils always know to return to the rest of the liquid once they stretch too far?” Vianne showed him the vial as if he had never seen it before. “It remembers not to stray too far. It holds thought.”

“It’s alive?” Maddox asked, he had found a scone and was trying hard to chew it. Vianne didn’t remember the last time she’d had a scone in her office.

“Many things are alive. But no, not the best way I’d put it.” Vianne replied. “I need to know what it’s made of before I can give my findings.” She looked at the tendrils and made a mental check: “Best not to open it before then.”

“Understatement,” Maddox choked on the dry scone.

Agotha closed her eyes for the span of two breaths.

“Oh,” Vianne realised she had spoken that out loud too. “By the way, who told you to find me here?”

“The new French Minister of Magic,” Theseus brought his teacup to his lips but decided against drinking. Deflated, he set the cup down.

Vianne frowned, that was not the answer she expected. “Come with me.”

“Right on time, Harvey,” Vianne stretched out her hand to accept the small creature he’d carried to the laboratory in the undercroft of the castle.

“Careful, Flaus is cranky today. Woke him during his nap,” Harvey warned.

“Is that—?” Theseus inched closer. “A troll?”

“Shhh!” Both Vianne and Harvey shouted.

Flaus was still groggy and half-asleep. He didn’t hear thankfully.

“They hate that term,” Vianne explained as she sat Flaus down on the table next to the vial. Since the vial was standing upright on a clamp, it was a few millimetres taller than Flaus without his hat. “They prefer Ymerkin, this here is Flaus. He used to live in a forest in Norway. He lost half his home to an unexplained fire. Some believe dragons since that was where we found a wounded Ridgeback.”

“Dragons…” Theseus said with hidden knowledge of something. “You don’t believe it?”

When Vianne didn’t answer Theseus right away, Harvey jumped in knowing her mind was otherwise occupied. “Not that it wasn’t dragons—Ridgebacks and Ymerkin share mostly peaceful interactions. A lot of strange things have been happening with magical creatures lately.”

“And a tro—Uhem…I mean, this little guy can help us how?” Maddox asked. He still had the scone. Maybe he was too proud to admit defeat and put it down.

“Flaus here has a keen sense of smell. Most Ymerkin do. He can pick out every ingredient in this vial…as long as we have it in the laboratory that is.” Vianne poked around in her bottomless satchel to retrieve a handful of Pixie Puffs. She crushed some into fine dust and sprinkled it over Flaus. The small Ymerkin began waking up. “They love sweet things. Flaus here enjoys Pixie Puffs the most.”

Vianne held her palm with the uncrushed Pixie Puffs and whispered close to Flaus. He clapped his hands and retrieved his hat from his tiny pocket. Like a skittering mouse running rampant in a large space, Flaus went about identifying all the ingredients that had the same smells that made up the ichor in the vial.

Vianne wrote down all the ingredients. There was nothing strange about them except the fact they shouldn’t work to create anything viable when combined. Flaus scrambled over previously searched rows until his little legs couldn’t carry him. He waved his hat to flag Vianne down so he could whisper in her ear.

“He says there’s more but none of those smells are on the shelves,” She bit the end of her quill. “The main ingredient isn’t on our shelves.”

“How well-stocked is your laboratory?” Theseus asked.

“Very. Except for contraband.”

Harvey stepped in, “Unless it’s dragon related. Then we do have it.”

“Not all dragons have the same make up,” Vianne was instructing Harvey rather than speaking to the room. “Looking at this list, the vial doesn’t seem to contain anything dangerous…”

Theseus arched a brow, a thought churning in his brain. Vianne couldn’t tell if it was a good one or a bad one.

Suddenly, Maddox started coughing. Some of the scone he’d been eating had blocked his windpipe. Then, after two strong heaves, he cleared it. Some of his dried scone spit shot at Flaus, who was nibbling on a Pixxie Puff two sizes larger than his hands. Flaus staggered, knocked the vial and it broke. Vianne had been mid shout when a splatter of the black ichor landed on her tongue.

Her body felt like it was being pulled in two directions, like her skeleton was racing in one direction and her muscle was moving in another, all the while her skin stayed put. There was no pain, but it felt surreal, dream-like.

Everything around her stilled like flies in amber and she marvelled at how everyone shared the same expression. Mouths open in an O, eyes serious, wands ready to cast.

Vianne’s body snapped backwards as if she’d been kicked by the Ridgeback she worked with earlier.

“How well-stocked is your laboratory?” Theseus asked again.

“What?” Vianne felt queasy. Her usually strong arms feeling as anchoring as noodles would to a ship.

Harvey stepped in, “One of the best. We have everything. Except banned goods, of course. Although we do have dragon paraphernalia.”

Vianne leaned against the table. Theseus's hand hovered over hers before he balled it and drew it away as if he'd broken out of an enchantment abruptly. She noticed Flaus was eating his Pixie Puffs like nothing had happened. The vial wasn’t broken either.

“ _Incroyable_ ,” Vianne picked up the vial after knocking the scone out of Maddox’s hand.

“Wh—Hey, you—”

Agotha silenced Maddox with a glare.

Vianne bent down and after searching her satchel, she removed a small magical flask with a suspended teardrop undulating like a jellyfish. She handed it to Flaus and asked: “Is this the scent you couldn’t place?”

Flaus jumped in agreement. Vianne handed him another handful of Pixie Puffs.

“What is it?” Theseus arched a brow.

Vianne’s brows came close together. Confliction as to whether she should find this to be a triumph or a loss was making the queasiness worse. “The main ingredient in this vial—this potion—is Demiguise tears. It’s a potion to see the future.”


	4. Effets Secondaires

**THESEUS  
**

The first thing that stuck out to Theseus about Vianne wasn’t that she had a habit of swearing under her breath in French all the time, it was the fact she wouldn’t be aware of it.

Vianne was the kind of person who said what was on her mind as soon as she thought it. In her case, she wouldn’t realise she’d spoken until something changed after the fact; like someone’s expression or a prompted question in response. He also noticed how her left eyebrow had a tendency to quirk upwards by the smallest fraction when she’d been forced out of her thoughts. It was almost cute. Made him feel like he was a young lad back in Hogwarts staring at Georgiana—the mousey girl with firebrand hair who was the botany teacher’s most studious student—get lost in a textbook.

Unlike Georgiana, Vianne was open and forward; two things Theseus wasn’t used to. Had he met her in a different time, he would have found her endearing charms quite comical. Alas, she had the sore misfortune of meeting him now.

Vianne had had a difficult time walking steady after her revelation in the undercroft. Theseus was practically counting her steps for her until they were all in her office again. He ignored the fact that Agotha had been eyeing him the whole way over, her streak of hair turning a mischievous green for the briefest moment. Had she gone to Hogwarts, Theseus was certain Agotha would be a Slytherin; with her cunning ways and composed self. Maddox had been Theseus’s senior at Hogwarts, and unfortunately, he’d been sorted into Gryffindor—a perfect fit all things considered, except it had the unintended effect of boosting his ego with pomp. 

Vianne swayed as she reached her desk, swearing under her breath as Theseus fought the urge to hover close in case he had to catch her.

“Do you have more of these?” Vianne said as she shook the vial more courageously than she had the first time she’d held it.

Maddox shot him a look not to reply. Agotha’s expression was unreadable. Theseus went with his gut instinct.

“Yes,” he said.

“How many?”

“Five, the sixth was taken by a man named Geoffrey Brudwarx.”

“Brudwarx…I’m not familiar,” Vianne trailed off to a new sentence without skipping a beat. “Six—one was missing—you said? Why take only one? _Produit defectueux_? ” She was talking at the room instead of to it.

Theseus caught on quick enough, “You think the other vials are failed experiments.”

“ _Oui. Non!_ ” Vianne scrunched her button nose. “I mean, yes. The five left behind must have not produced the desired effect.”

Maddox leaned forward in his chair, “But you saw the future, didn’t you?”

“But that doesn’t mean there aren’t side effects,” Theseus realised, suddenly all too aware of the fact Vianne was sweating despite the cool air in the castle.

Vianne’s eyes widened as she looked at the vial again. “ _Incroyable,”_ She whispered and then shook her head to elaborate: “Except, it isn’t. From what I can tell, the concentration of Demiguise tears needed to make something so potent is…troubling. It’s a very hard ingredient to get. Most wizards don’t even bother trying to find it. Time magic is a dangerous thing, but mainly, it’s hard to _synthétiser_. Err…synthesise. And volatile!” Vianne swayed again. “Very volatile.”

“How’d you get your sample?” Maddox asked, his muddy boots scuffing an open magazine on a coffee table.

Vianne hesitated to answer, but only for a moment. “It was a gift from my brother. He’s no stranger to bending the rules in his favour. It’s a family flaw I’m afraid.” She looked to the small Ymerkin on her shoulder. Flaus was half asleep with a mouth covered in pink crumbs. She cradled him and placed him on a cushion on top of a stack of books that Theseus had first assumed belonged to a cat. “A lot of the creatures in my care are not supposed to be in… _captivity_. But they’re not safe out there anymore. So, I bend the rules too.”

“And who enables this _rule-bending_?” Agotha spoke, fingers laced together over her lips. “I haven’t heard of you till today. Which means you don’t have the—” Agotha took a minute to piece the right words together. “— _pull_ to see to this by yourself.”

Vianne smiled but it wasn’t a happy one, more of a way to seem polite in the face of an irritating question. “My mother has some rank in the Ministry.” She cleared her throat. “Do you have an account?”

“Account?” Theseus asked.

“Of the laboratory—an inventory.”

He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a piece of parchment.

“Excellent,” Vianne lit up as she grabbed the paper and whispered something to Harvey by the door. The scruffy boy nodded and raced down the hall. “Castle Balcloicheil has quite the extensive library. I hope to have more answers for you after I do some research. Until then—” she began flipping through books on a shelf, slipping anything from a quill-feather to a ribbon to use as a bookmark as she accumulated a new pile. Ignoring Theseus and his company as if they weren’t cramping up her office.

Maddox leaned close to Agotha and whispered, “Should we tell her about the dragon?”

Agotha’s jaw clenched in a manner that gave Maddox the answer he wanted. It was no matter though, Vianne had somehow heard them from across the room. She stuck her head out from behind a cluttered shelf, “There’s a dragon?”

Theseus comported himself when he felt an amused tug on his lips. Agotha groaned, steeling her eyes at Maddox.

Vianne walked up to them with that look of curiosity working over her face when suddenly her eyes rolled back and she toppled over. Theseus reached out to catch her before she fell completely.

“Side-effects,” Agotha whispered before she shouted at Maddox to get a healer.

Theseus held Vianne’s trembling body in his hands and the feeling trudging through his anxious muscles made him want a peppermint. He felt sick.


	5. Alice à Travers le Miroir

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter operates under the assumption that time turners weren’t common knowledge, nor were they in circulation in the Ministries of Magic around the world, so it’s kind of an origin story for the creation of sustainable time travel in the wizarding world.
> 
> (P.S: Sorry for the brain hurty time travel goboldy gook.)

Theseus paced about the room as he waited for the nurses to give their report. Agotha’s hand blocked the way, making him halt in his steps.

“Theseus, sit, you’re making me anxious,” she said with a sternness that could almost be amounted to an order.

“I agree mate, you’re pacing’s making me edgy,” Maddox added.

Theseus sat on the ratty chair that needed to be re-stuffed at least a decade ago in the castle’s solar. A ladle mixed the ingredients of what smelled like soup bubbling in a cast iron pot over a hook by the fireplace.

Theseus watched the enchanted ladle go round and round, uninterrupted. It kept his mind from remembering how limp Vianne felt in his arms a few hours ago. It kept him from imagining Leta in her place, rather than behind that wall of flames. Had he been given a chance to hold her one more time, would it have been more painful watching her die?

Maddox nudged Agotha with his elbow, his eyebrows rising upward in a kind of silent language. Agotha shook her head in response. The silence resided for a little while longer. Theseus was thankful, it meant he wouldn’t have to put on airs if they asked him how he was.

Agotha noticed a phonograph on one of the end tables near a drawing table full of rough sketches and detailed ones, all on strange creatures. She stood from her seat when she spotted a cabinet with music cylinders in it.

Maddox’s attentions were drawn to the room’s baronial décor, most especially the ceiling tiles denoting some fabled story no doubt.

Theseus blinked when he noticed his eyes were dry, looking away from the ladle and moving to look over the sketches. He felt like he was back at Hogwarts, looking over his textbooks in the library. Except all the notes and annotations were gibberish to him here. Some were on advanced potion making, techniques and styles he’d never been taught before. They looked like scribblings of a mad man, outlandish.

“Do you really think she glimpsed the future?” Maddox asked the question that had been hanging over all their heads.

“The wizarding world is changing,” Agotha said.

“But to see the future, that’s madness,” Maddox spoke louder.

“We have spells that allow us to glimpse the past,” Theseus added as he looked over a diagram of an Inferi, ghoulish with stark whites for eyes. The marginalia on the page read: _la mort ne peut être annulée._ “Death cannot be undone,” he translated in a whisper before putting the page back. 

Agotha removed a cylinder from its tube and wound the phonograph. Music, crackling and faint, struggled to carry across the thick stone castle walls. It was classical from the sound of it, Hungarian or Russian in origin. 

“The past is different, Theseus. Set in stone. Like those tiles.” Agotha pointed to the ceiling. “Or music.”

“If Grindelwald is dabbling in things beyond the Dark Arts, that means catastrophe for us,” Maddox said. “The Dark Arts we know. We’ve fought it before. Whatever Geoffrey is plotting, that’s worse. It’s new. We were never trained to fight new.”

“War always means catastrophe,” Theseus said simply. “We must simply adapt.”

Maddox heaved a sigh, running his hand through his beard in frustration, “But not like this!”

Theseus turned to look his friend in the eye. Maddox was unnerved, frightened even.

Agotha walked to his side, “Maddox, calm yourself.”

Maddox shrugged Agotha away, his fist curling and uncurling for lack of a distraction.

“Would it really be such a terrible thing?” Theseus put his hands in his coat pockets. “Imagine all the good we could do if we perfected that serum before Geoffrey does? All the lives we could save if we knew _how._ ”

Agotha looked at him with a blank expression. That ashen streak of hers turning to a darker colour.

Maddox wasn’t the slightest bit amused with Theseus’s insinuation. He took a sharp breath before speaking again, “Theseus, we aren’t supposed to know the future. This magic isn’t magic at all, it’s alchemical and evil—an abomination to wield. We don’t even know what’s in those vials. How many had to suffer devastation before they got this sample right? And what of the side effects? Vianne’s been under care for nearly four hours, no change in her state.”

“There’s more than one way to make a formula,” Theseus argued.

“But we only know of Geoffrey’s way,” Agotha countered. “And his way is malicious.” She narrowed her good eye at him.

Theseus needed to tread carefully here if he didn’t want an argument to break out. “That doesn’t mean that our way must be too.”

Agotha held up her hand to silence him from speaking further, “Time travel magic has been banned since 1899, and with good reason.”

“She’s right,” Vianne suddenly appeared with a cane in hand to keep her stable. She was pale, lips ashy.

Harvey called after her as he ran to catch up, “Vianne the nurses said—”

“I’m aware,” she nodded as she moved over to a chair. “ _Merde…_ ” she cursed as she took a moment to close her eyes. Theseus gathered it was so she wouldn’t be sick in front of everyone.

“How do you feel?” Theseus walked closer to her, leaning his frame against the armrest of a chair.

Vianne groaned, rolling her eyes. “Sick to my stomach.”

“Why are you out of bed?” Maddox asked, eyeing her with a look of a surgeon.

“You were all speaking so loudly, your debate piqued my interest,” she leaned into the couch cushions.

Theseus glanced at Maddox and Agotha, perplexed. He was sure they’d kept their voices civil, low. Maddox shrugged, surprised that Vianne had heard them.

“The potion, I was wrong,” Vianne paused, short of breath. “It doesn’t allow one to just see the future, it allows them to live it.”

“I don’t understand,” Theseus folded his arms, “what’s the difference?”

“When you glimpse the future, you’re merely looking into a mirror, of sorts. The potion was different. To me, everything up until the moment the vial broke was my present. It wasn’t until everything repeated itself did I realise I’d gone through time and back again.” Vianne hunched over, her hand pressing against her lips. 

Theseus dug around in his pockets for a spare peppermint. He unwrapped it and handed it to her. She thanked him and sucked on the sweet for a brief moment before sitting back up. 

“If your present only changed after you were exposed to the potion, does that mean you travelled to the future, or the past?” Maddox said.

Theseus’s head snapped up at that distinction. Vianne noticed his change in composure.

“It works both ways, but I think you can only move between the time you ingest the potion to the time it takes for the effects to wear off. It’s like snapping into the future and only being aware that was the future once you snap back. So your future becomes your past, the past before time travelling is still the past, and the present remains the present” Vianne scrunched her nose. “ _C’est déroutant, même pour moi_.”

Everyone in the room let out a confused noise. Harvey’s mouth remained open as his eyes darted about the room trying to comprehend what Vianne was trying to explain.

“How do we know when the present is?” Agotha asked.

“ _Je suppose,_ whenever we aren’t near the vials,” Vianne rubbed her temple, muttering something in French before trying to explain further. “Okay, so I think, if I had ingested more of the potion, the furthest in time I could snap back to is the moment I met the three of you.”

“Because that’s when the vial was in your possession,” Harvey pointed out.

“ _Oui!_ ” Vianne clapped.

“And the furthest we can go is… the catacombs,” Theseus pointed between himself, Maddox and Agotha.

“That means Geoffrey can go back further,” Agotha stood up, now it was her turn to pace. With anger, she looked to Theseus and said: “You know what this means.”

“It means we’ve probably caught Geoffrey before,” Theseus sighed. “That’s how come he’s been a step ahead of us this whole time.”

Maddox ran his hands over his face, a curse leaving his mouth. “So what’s to keep him from going backwards; or forwards and _then_ backwards, over and over again?”

“You’re assuming he can travel within a loop he’s already lived through,” Vianne hypothesised. “We don’t have enough evidence on our side to make such a guess.” 

“I don’t understand any of this,” Harvey flapped his arms in defeat.

“What do you mean by a loop?” Agotha inched forward from her seat.

“ _Comment puis-je dire cela simplement?”_ Vianne stared at a water stain on the window for what felt like an eternity.

Theseus was itching to get more answers, to make sense of all the chaos. He rubbed his hands together to let his impatience radiate as friction.

Vianne snapped her fingers and let out a sound of _eureka._ “Alright, so we all know the magical world has limitations, _non_? Every spell runs its course. Every potion has a limit to what it can do. And some spells cannot be undone, like the unbreakable vow. This is the order to prevent chaos. A limitation by nature.” Vianne wove her fingers together to make a bridge to act as a visual aid. “The undercroft was one loop. And to prevent time from collapsing, in theory, the potion should only allow me to travel back to the point where my loop ended. So, after I had already experienced the loop in the undercroft.”

“What happens if I drink the potion?” Theseus arched up a brow, locking eyes with Vianne.

Cautiously, she answered: “Your loop is outside of mine, so, again, in theory, you would be able to travel back and undo my timeline. Unless you had at one point travelled back between one of my loops, then the first loop would still exist, and unless you interfered with the course of events, the second theoretical loop would exist too.” 

“I need a drink,” Agotha scoffed.

Theseus shrugged off his coat and draped it over the back of his chair. “You and me both.”

“Where’s the potion now?” Vianne asked.

Without thinking on it, he pointed his thumb towards the back of him, “In my coat pocket.”

Vianne struggled to her feet, and after a heavy breath, she fished the potion out to look at it in sunlight.

Maddox pointed two fingers at Vianne, “I thought we just established that potion is dangerous.”

“I’m only performing a controlled test,” Vianne said.

At first, Theseus didn’t think too hard on her words. When he realised what she was thinking of doing, he spun around so fast he nearly knocked over his chair. “Vianne, wait!”

Vianne took a sip of the potion just as Theseus used his wand to cast Accio.

Theseus paced about the room as he waited for the nurses to give their report. Agotha’s hand blocked the way, making him halt in his steps.

“Theseus, sit, you’re making me anxious,” she said with a sternness that could almost be amounted to an order.

“I agree mate, you’re pacing’s making me edgy,” Maddox added.

Theseus sat on the ratty chair that needed to be re-stuffed at least a decade ago in the castle’s solar. A ladle mixed the ingredients of what smelled like soup bubbling in a cast iron pot over a hook by the fireplace. As he watched the wooden spoon spin round and round, he had the strangest feeling of Déjà vu.


End file.
